the new museum

Despite the misogynistic horror of Donald Trump’s campaign and eventual election victory, 2016 was a great year for women in the art. There were compelling solo exhibitions by women artists in major institutions, a copious list of all-women group shows and dynamic revivals of unfairly overlooked female artists’ careers. It seems like 2016 marked the return of much-needed 1990’s-style “girl power.”

Granted, there’s still a long way to go for equal representation, particularly for women artists of color. But, hopefully, this is just the beginning. To celebrate this year’s exciting and timely return to feminism, I selected the ten best shows featuring women in 2016. Results below:

Feminism isn’t easy to pin down. It’s a social movement that shares a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, and social rights for women. It’s famously defined by waves (first, second and third) that only a few of us can fully explain without referencing Wikipedia.

For me, feminism is characterized less by the social movement it describes, than by woman who chose for themselves what they like, what they want, and who they are. It’s simple, and that’s part of why I like it. It’s inclusive, and it can be fun, pleasurable and charming—all qualities of the most infectious and influential kinds of movements.

As it happens, this is exactly the strength of “Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest”, the New Museum’s 30 retrospective of the artist’s videos curated by Massimiliano Gioni.

Probably the most inspiring night of my life was Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s artist talk at MICA a few years ago. I’m likely paraphrasing here, but there was anecdote along the lines of “If you told me when we were pissing in a bottle as performance art in the Sixties that we’d end up saving dolphins in the Eighties, we wouldn’t have believed it. But now, in retrospect, we see that they’re all parts of the same process.” The message I took away from this: art is important. Working out our frustrations and tears and hopes now might lead to tangible victories in the future—even if they might be considered small in the grand scheme of things.

That’s why I’m personally exceptionally proud to have Genesis speaking on Wednesday night as part of our Strange Genitals exhibition at AICAD. This is a person of extreme wisdom, compassion, and rebellious spirit—qualities the world desperately needs right now. In a strange twist of irony, two events extremely dear to AFC’s interests are competing with the talk: a discussion about DICKS at Fortnight Institute, and a performance interpreting Dennis Cooper’s GIF novels at the New Museum.

There’s plenty of more overtly politically-minded art events for the rest of the week. Thursday night, Xaviera Simmons opens a mysterious solo show at Half Gallery, and Terence Gower talks US-Cuba relations at Simon Preston Gallery, followed by an unrelated LGBT anti-Trump rally in Washington Square Park. If you’re energized from that, meet with State Committeeman Ben Yee at Arts on Site Friday for a discussion on organizing resistance ahead of the midterm elections. We’re also excited for openings at the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts and Vector Gallery, where some AFC reviews might just find their way into JJ Brine’s sculptures…

The weekend brings Pioneer Works’ conference on alternative art schools. I’d expect the conversations to be dominated by the election results rather than pure pedagogy. Saturday night, Michael St. John uses Walt Whitman to consider subjectivity in democracy at Andrea Rosen Gallery, and PS1’s Mark Leckey-centered Night at the Museum might just encourage us to dance our way through these trying times.

Today is the one year anniversary of Chris Burden’s death from melanoma at the age of 69. I’ve been thinking a lot about Burden lately; there have been few artists capable of producing work that retains such a visceral punch no matter how often it’s been seen. Watching decades-old documentation of, or even reading about, Burden’s limit-testing performances still elicits a sense of suspense. Burden desperately wanted to shock his audience into feeling something. He was a polarising figure, but there’s no doubt that he succeeded.
So today, head to the New Museum and look up at “Ghost Ship”. Chris Burden might have disembarked on his final journey, but a piece of his frontier-pushing spirits still floats over the Bowery, for the time being.

The number of artists who make art from found imagery and objects is now too many to count. Tumblrs and blogs are full of it and so too are the annals of art history. From Surf Clubs and The Jogging to Haim Steinbach, Robert Rauschenberg and Llyn Foulkes there’s a near bottomless reservoir of work that was made in one world and plunked into a fine art context.

I thought about this as I walked around the New Museum, mostly in awe of Jim Shaw’s three floor survey exhibition The End is Here. It’s basically two stories of art stuff produced and assembled from 1973 on—paintings, and drawings on the second floor; other people’s paintings, drawings, pamphlets, t-shirts and religious banners on the third floor. The museum reserved the fourth for Shaw’s massive cut-out theatre sets and sculptures.

Claudia Hart’s show at Bitforms is inspired by Alice in Wonderland. I take a look at the exhibition on Artnet; conceptually, Hart’s work is very weak. [Artnet]

Speaking of Bitforms, it seems the gallery cancelled Postfeminism, a show that was slated to open three weeks from now and was curated artist and curator Marisa Olson. Irate about the cancellation, Olson took her complaints to Facebook. [Facebook]

Bad news in San Francisco. Intersection for the Arts has suspended its programs and laid off curators. Their fiscal sponsorship program will remain in tact. [Kqed.Org]

Bad news for the Glasgow School of Art. A massive fire broke out at the school earlier today. [BBC]

Amazon is not making any friends in the literary community for actively discouraging people from buying books from the publisher Hatchett. Now, they have escalated that battle buy refusing orders. [The New York Times]

Roberta Smith says the New Museum is alive with music thanks to Ragnar Kjartansson. This is a review that makes you want to see the show. [The New York Times]

Tom Moody thinks the New Romantics exhibition at Eyebeam would have been better without the New Romantics lens. [Tom Moody]